Server and System Status

You may have received automated emails from the web server (NC031) control panel recently advising of the availability of an upgrade for WordPress to version 5.0.3. Normally your installation of WordPress (or NinerNet) would upgrade WordPress for you, but because this is a “major upgrade” — from version 4.x to version 5.x — the automated upgrade process is not activated by WordPress and we also will not automatically upgrade WordPress installations installed through the control panel.

However, as you are no doubt aware, WordPress advises that you should always be running the latest version, and this is standard advice for any software, especially Internet-facing software. In fact, most websites run by web applications (such as WordPress) that are hacked at some point are hacked because they’re running an out-of-date version.

As such we strongly recommend that you upgrade your installation of WordPress to the latest version as soon as possible.

The most straightforward way to do this is to log into your installation of WordPress and follow the instructions there to run the upgrade. Or you can do so through the web server control panel at Install Scripts -> Installed Scripts.

You may take one of the following three courses of action at this time:

Upgrade your installation of WordPress yourself using one of the two methods stated immediately above.

Allow us to run an automated upgrade for you.

Choose not to upgrade. If you choose this course of action, please advise us so that we can exclude your website from an automated upgrade, and confirm that you accept the risk of running out-of-date software.

Please note that if your installation of WordPress was not installed through the control panel, then we cannot upgrade it for you. You can confirm whether or not WordPress was installed through the control panel by logging into the web server control panel, and navigating to Install Scripts -> Installed Scripts. If WordPress is listed there you can run the upgrade from there; if it is not listed, then you or your website manager or designer installed WordPress manually, and will need to upgrade it by logging into WordPress.

Any installations of WordPress that have not been upgraded by their owners by 00:01 UTC on Thursday 24 January will be upgraded by NinerNet through the control panel — unless you have asked to be excluded or your installation of WordPress was installed manually — shortly thereafter. To convert this deadline to your time zone please consult the World Time Server.

Thank-you for your attention to this matter. If you have any questions, please contact support.

This blog provides information about the status of NinerNet Communications systems. Dates and times of posts to this blog are in the UTC time zone, and dates and times given for events are also in the UTC time zone, although conversions may be offered for some time zones common to our clients. Please use the World Time Server to ensure accurate conversion of dates and times to your own time zone.